Vantage Engineering & Technology Services, LLC

Joseph Polk

VPL is led by President Joseph Polk, a 35-year NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) contractor.  Joe’s areas of technical expertise include spacecraft ground and flight systems development and testing; spacecraft system simulations; systems requirements, design, and analysis; spacecraft software systems integration and test; systems deployment; software systems conversion and rehosting; software systems maintenance; system verification and validation; system configuration management; and system documentation.  He has developed aerospace systems for NASA and the United States Air Force, and developed business applications for the United States Army, Coast Guard, Federal Aviation Administration, and private industry.  He is still “hands-on” in his day-to-day work with GSFC.  He has garnered a multitude of awards for his technical expertise and untiring dedication.

Joe’s singular philosophy has remained: customer satisfaction is priority one.

Joe Ogonek

Mr. Joe Ogonek serves as the Program Director for NASA’s Glenn Engineering and Scientific Support (GESS-3) Contract.  His role is to lead the five-year $240M contact and it’s nearly 300 engineers, scientists and support staff in meeting the NASA Glenn Research Center’s requirements and strategic objectives.

Mr. Ogonek has a wide array of experiences developing and managing technical solutions and services. He has held executive-level and business development positions with government contracting firms supporting NASA, government agencies, and commerical enterprises. After working at Fermi National Accelerator Lab and Bailey Controls, Mr. Ogonek joined Analex Corporation in 1989 to support engineering efforts, including numerous space experiment projects, at NASA GRC. He held various management positions at Analex including Commercial Sales Manager and Software Manager. In 2007 Mr. Ogonek joined QinetiQ North America and served as the Director of Technical Services and advanced to serve as the Vice President of the Engineering Support Services Division where he managed technical services ($63M annually) provided at various NASA field centers. Prior to joining VPL to support GESS-3, he was the GESS-2 Deputy Program Manager for ASRC Aerospace.

Mr. Ogonek earned his Master’s Degree in Physics from The University of Akron where he participated in researching fundamental properties of polymer-based high temperature adhesives and lubricants, which was partially funded by NASA. He received his undergraduate degree in Physics from John Carroll University. In addition, Mr. Ogonek has completed post-graduate courses in Engineering Management from Cleveland State University.

Mr. Ogonek is a member of several organizations, including AIAA and INCOSE, and voluntarily participates in the GRC Speaker’s Bureau and FIRST Robotics.

Dr. Paul Giel

COMING SOON

Paul Lesiak 

Mr. Lesiak serves as the Operations and Project Support Area Manager for NASA’s Glenn Engineering and Science Support 3 contract. In this position, his focus is on supporting the work objectives and requirements defined by the NASA GRC Facilities and Operations Directorate as well as specific GRC projects. His leadership and management of nearly 78 engineers, designers, project schedulers and configuration management professionals are critical in assuring our customer’s objectives are met.

Mr. Lesiak brings over 35 years of GRC support service contract experience to his role. Starting in January of 1979, he quickly established himself in the mechanical design area as a very conscientious and dedicated leader. After 8 years, he was assigned to coordinate the design effort of the first major microgravity experiment out of GRC, Surface Tension Driven Experiment (STDCE), which flew on the USML-1 in 1992.

In 1990, Paul moved into a management role as a design group leader and eventually in 1995 became the Design Department Manager. Under Paul’s leadership, microgravity design support services were provided on such programs as STDCE-II, Droplet Combustion Experiment (DCE), Combustion Module One (CM1) and (CM2), the early development and concept design of the Fluids Combustion Facility and many glovebox experiments. His dedicated design support, project coordination and leadership were also provided to such Aeronautic programs as ERA, RTA, ISTAR-DCCR, QAT, UEET developing and integrating hardware in many GRC facilities such as the wind tunnels, ERB, APL, PSL, ERB and the Plumbrook facilities HTF, SPF and the B2. 

Paul earned his Project Management (PMI) Certification in 2005 and is an active member of the Program Management Institute, PMI.

Regina Randar

Ms. Regina Randar, Vantage Partners, LLC (VPL), serves as the Business Manager for NASA Glenn’s Engineering and Scientific Support (GESS-3) Contract.  Regina leads the Business Office in support of a $230M task order contract.  She specializes in contract management, financial analysis, subcontract administration, government contract reporting, and internal task order management reporting. She has designed and developed the business office systems, approach, and tools used by Vantage Partners, LLC to accomplish contract accounting, work order and task order pricing, staffing plans, cost accruals, subcontract management, and contract required reporting.

Ms. Randar has over 25 years of experience that began in 1989 with Analex Corporation and then in 2007 she transitioned to QinetiQ North America.  In 1993, she was named the Deputy Program Manager for NASA’s Engineering and Technical Services contract.  In 1995, she was the Business Manager for NASA’s Aerospace Research and Development Support (ARADS) contract.  She was the Business Manager as a major subcontractor for NASA’s Microgravity Research, Development and Operations Contract (MRDOC), Glenn Engineering and Scientific Support (GESS), and Glenn Engineering and Scientific Support (GESS-2) contracts.  She provides outstanding support to the customer, communicates effectively with the technical management team, interfaces regularly with the corporate office, and motivates and leads a business operations group.

Ms. Randar earned a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Baldwin-Wallace College and a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Hiram College.

John Andrasik

Mr. Andrasik serves as the Safety and Mission Assurance Manager for the NASA Glenn Engineering and Scientific Support 3 (GESS 3) contract. He isresponsible for all GESS 3 occupational safety and health and mission assurance matters, as well as the development and implementation of a quality management system at the contract level.

Mr. Andrasik is a versatile, hands-on manager and engineer with more than 25 years of experience in NASA’s spaceflight arena. His experience base includes; safety and mission assurance program management; spaceflight materials and processes application and evaluation; general metallic and nonmetallic materials engineering application and evaluation; ISO/AS quality management system evaluation, development, and implementation; NASA flight and ground systems safety; occupational safety and health program development and implementation; and contract proposal development and evaluation.

Prior to GESS 3, Mr. Andrasik’s NASA-affiliated experiences include; Program Manager of the Safety and Mission Assurance Support Services II (SMASS II) contract with ARES Corporation; Senior Materials Engineer for the Engineering, Scientific, and Technical Support (ESTS) contract with Qualis Corporation; Safety and Quality Manger of the Microgravity Research, Development, and Operations Contract (MRDOC) with ZIN Technologies; and Aerospace Engineer with NASA’s Lewis Research Center.

Mr. Andrasik earned both his Master of Science Degree in Industrial Engineering and Bachelor of Metallurgical Engineering Degree from Cleveland State University.